Re: [PATCH] hal probe modem caps ondemand

[Marcel Holtmann <marcel holtmann org>]

Hi Dan,

> > > >  > > > Probe CDC-ACM modems, found in most cell phones on the fly, using
> > > >  > > > AT+GCAP modem command.
> > > >  > > > I tested it with 1 Nokia GSM phone, and 2 CDMA.
> > > >  > >
> > > >  > > Great!  Thanks for writing this.
> > > >  > >
> > > >  > > So what we can do now is remove all the matches for individual devices
> > > >  > > in the fdi file, and just match on the driver name for nozomi, airprime,
> > > >  > > option, and sierra.  We'll have a few left-over items that aren't driven
> > > >  > > by those, but those devices will either use cdc_acm (and therefore be
> > > >  > > probed) or we can just tag them to be probed automatically.  Not sure
> > > >  > > how this works on BSD and Solaris though; if they don't have separate
> > > >  > > drivers to run the mobile broadband cards then they'd have to revert
> > > >  > > back to the per-device tagging to know when to probe and when not to
> > > >  > > probe.
> > > >  >
> > > >  > be careful with this. If the SIM card needs a PIN code first, we might
> > > >  > not be able to send any AT commands at all. I tried for example to get
> > > >  > the IMEI before entering the PIN, but that never worked on the cards
> > > >  > that I own.
> > > >
> > > >  Hmm, does that mean the device will only respond to AT+CPIN"xxxx" until
> > > >  you give it the PIN?
> > >
> > > 
> > > I tried to get caps from my phone w/o sim card inserted.
> > > And it worked. I'm thinking that it will work for gsm modem too, w/o
> > > pin entered.
> > 
> > you think doesn't help us here. We actually have to test all modem cards
> > and see if that works. A phone without a SIM card is different than a
> > modem card. Also a phone with Symbian OS is different than other OS.
> > 
> > > But I see another one problem. One of phones that I have access to,
> > > doesn't report caps when booting,
> > > that's cdma phone and it takes few seconds to boot/read data from
> > > card. It CDC device appears and doesn't
> > > work until boot is complete. You can re-plug the phone, but this bug
> > > is annoying. May be special method should be added like ProbeCaps
> > > to modem device?
> > 
> > If we can annotate the modem caps via FDI files using the USB vendor and
> > product id, I am for doing that. Having HAL open the TTY device is not a
> > good idea. Especially since not all GSM/UMTS/CDMA modem follow clear
> > standards and some of them are picky about the AT commands that are sent
> > and in which order.
> 
> The whole point of auto-probing was so that we wouldn't have to keep
> changing a huge table of IDs in the fdi files.  We need to turn
> 10-modem.fdi into a quirks file really, where the things that _don't_
> work with autoprobing are quirked but everything else that's driven by
> cdc-acm, option, hso, sierra, airprime, etc get autoprobed by default.
> Obviously we shouldn't probe straight-up serial lines, and we'll need to
> mark some things driven by the PCMCIA serial driver explicitly probed
> (Sierra AirCard 860 for example).

before we jump here to any conclusions, can we please figure out which
cards actually allow probing before entering the PIN code. Current
assumption is that it is actually possible with modem cards.

Regards

Marcel